What Does Luke 21:6 Mean?
As for these things you gaze upon, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another, but each will be loosed and torn down.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.THE KEY
The pairing of “not be left” with “thrown down” makes the image exhaustive: no stone stays within the structure, and the whole arrangement comes apart.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the reader’s gaze on what appears built to last, then names its complete dismantling: not one stone is left upon another. Its verbs picture every stone leaving its place and the whole arrangement coming apart. A structure’s visible scale does not make it permanent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it undoes is that a structure’s scale and apparent permanence guarantee that it will remain intact.
THE ROOT
καταλυθήσεται
katalythēsetai
GROWS FROM
λύω (luō), in καταλύω (kataluō)
λύω (luō) means to loosen or untie; καταλύω (kataluō) means to dismantle or tear down.
“loosed and torn down” in this verse is katalythēsetai. The future verb καταλυθήσεται (katalythēsetai, will be dismantled) comes from καταλύω (kataluō, dismantle), built on λύω (luō, loosen). The structure’s arrangement itself is undone, stone by stone.
ALSO GROWS
luō: Loosen, untie, unbind.
λύω
This is the base verb carried into the demolition word; the picture begins with undoing what is held together.
apoluō: Release, dismiss, send away.
ἀπολύω
This compound shares λύω (luō, loosen); elsewhere the word family can name release, while here the loosening is the destruction of a stone structure.
ἀφεθήσεται
aphethēsetai
GROWS FROM
ἀφίημι
aphiēmi
ἀφίημι (aphiēmi) means to let go, leave, release, or forgive.
This verb can mean to leave or let go and elsewhere names forgiveness as release; the KJV’s “left” sits inside that wider letting-go family. Paired with “thrown down,” the wording moves from no stone remaining in place to complete disassembly.
ALSO GROWS
aphiēmi: Leave, let go, release; forgive.
ἀφίημι
This is the verb behind “left”: no stone is left in place within the arrangement.
aphesis: Release; forgiveness.
ἄφεσις
The same word family names release from a burden; here its verb form says that no stone remains in position before the full teardown.
THE PATTERN
Visible structures and forms remain subject to being brought low, removed, or dismantled, however fixed they appear.
And the height of man shall bow down, and the heights of men shall be brought low; and the LORD alone shall be lifted high in that day.And this, “Yet once more,” shows the setting elsewhere of what is shaken, as of what has been made, so that what is not shaken may remain.For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is taken down, we have a house built by God, not made by hands, of the ages, in the heavens.THE THREAD
For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is taken down, we have a house built by God, not made by hands, of the ages, in the heavens.Luke’s καταλύω (kataluō, dismantle) returns in 2 Corinthians as “dissolved” for an earthly dwelling. The shared verb joins the falling stones to another image of dismantling, then sets that dismantling beside a building from God.
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